Elections: Obama administration recoups $2 million from Haiti

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Valéry Bennett

National Palace Correspondent

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) – The $2 million remaining from the 2015 election that, in July, the Obama administration requested Haiti return has been given back to the United States announce the Minister of the Economy on Friday.

Haiti never actually had the money in its possession. The total $33 million the United States had given for the country’s 2015 elections had always been held in a trust fund managed by the United Nations Development Program.

A total of $8 million remained in this fund and of it that which the United States had contributed and was not spent: $2 million.

In July, the Obama State Department announced that it would not be helping Haiti fund its elections and demanded the return of that $2 million of monies it had given in 2015.

The tensions between the two countries stem from Haiti’s decision in early May to redo an election cycle held in 2015 that was grossly fraudulent and violence-ridden. The U.S. did not approve and has “made no bones about it”, according to a State Department spokesperson.

The Minister of the Economy and Finance, Yves Romain Bastien, updated journalists in the press room on Friday.

Regarding Haiti’s struggle to raise $55 million for elections more than 5 years overdue, Bastien said $15 million had been identified and granted to the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).